Sunday, August 14, 2016

Exxon’s Latest Campaign to Stymie Climate Action

Recent press accounts report that ExxonMobil
is now actively promoting a carbon tax. If true, that's big news. It
would mean that, after nearly 20 years of blocking action on climate change, the world's biggest energy company has finally come to its senses.

Rex Tillerson is the chairman, president and CEO of ExxonMobil.

But
wait a minute. If something sounds too good to be true, then it
probably is. So one might well ask: Is this anything more than a PR
ploy?

Let's take a closer look.

As I reported
earlier this year, ExxonMobil has paid lip service to the idea of a
carbon tax since 2009 but, all the while, has continued to fund federal
lawmakers who resolutely oppose it. In March 2015, for example, the
Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon
tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign
contributions since 2010 voted in favor of the prohibition. Meanwhile,
in March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored a nonbinding resolution
stating that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and
businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States."
Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors were funded by—you guessed
it—ExxonMobil. MORE

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Arthur C. Pillsbury early understood the problems facing his generation. His solution applied edge technologies, film and an expanded understanding of the living processes of the natural world, to awaken people to the need to respect the integrity of the natural world.

His work changed the world, but remains to be finished by those of us now living.